Steemit Review – An Honest Take After Six Months of Travel Blogging

Imagine you are going on about your normal daily lives like posting a picture of what you ate for lunch on Instagram and bragging about where you're flying to for your next vacation to your Facebook friends. Now imagine, instead of wasting your time and padding your ego, you get paid for those actions. That’s exactly what Steemit, Inc., is doing with Steemit.com.

To put it bluntly from Steemit, Inc.,' own words: “Steemit has redefined social media by building a living, breathing, and growing social economy – a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice. It’s a new kind of attention economy.”

I’ve heard about the Steeemit around December 2017 while doing research about blockchain. I’ve known about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for while and didn’t really get into it until skyrocketed to $20,000 per Bitcoin around the same time. I was also looking for new ways to gain more audience to my Photography and Travel Blog so I joined.

After six months of Travel Blogging on the platform, I've learned a lot. I've had many highs and many lows. Here, I will share with you non-biased and honest review of the social media platform with the hopes that you judge for yourself if it's worth your time.

I already had an established photography and travel blog with an audience. Getting more from Steemit.com would be a bonus!

What is Steemit?

Think of Steemit a Social Blogging Platform like Reddit and Medium where you can post articles and users vote on the content you posted. However, unlike Reddit, Steemit rewards your content with Money. Users (Steemit members) can upvote (or downvote) your posts and based on the power of their votes, rewards you with Steem and SBD (Steem Backed Dollars), which is Steemit’s own cryptocurrency.

You can then use this currency to Power up within the system, so your votes have more power (monetary returns) or use it to purchase goods/services within the platform. You can also transfer the cryptocurrency to various exchanges like Bittrex and Binance, convert it to Bitcoin and eventually transfer it to your bank as Fiat Currency (Dollars, Euros, etc.,)

Aesthetically, the interface is easy to use, for the most part. It reminds me a lot of Reddit and Medium. The text editor is a bit lacking and if you’re a seasoned blogger who’s used to WordPress, you might find the platform bare bones. Luckily, there’s another interface called Busy (Busy.org) that provides an improved interface to the Steem Blockchain – what you post on Busy.org, will be recorded on the Steem Blockchain and that means it will also be seen on Steemit.com.

What Can You Do on Steemit?

You can do what you normally do on Social platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can post photos, publish posts, write opinions, upvote or downvote posts, and so on. However, instead of getting an ego boost, you get rewarded with Steem which is the cryptocurrency of the platform. You earn money for posting your photos and publishing your posts. You can also get money for upvoting or comment on somebody else’s posts.

If you’re familiar with Reddit, it works pretty much the same way with the caveat of making actual money from votes. The general idea is that anyone using the platform who contribute good quality content can get voted and reward or help by rating content while also getting rewarded for that action.

How to Join Steemit

It’s easy to register if you to have an account on Facebook or Reddit as a means of verification for your registration.

3 – Pick a User Name. Warning: This is permanent! Pick a username you are happy with it and live with it.

4 – Enter your Email Address.

5 – Check your email and confirm registration.

Your application will be manually reviewed and vetted and once that’s done you can start using the platform. Once you’re approved and start to access the platform I recommend doing some reading. Get a feel of how things are run. Pick a topic and niches and read some articles and engage other users. Comment and vote on other users (Steemians) content.

introduceyourself

A popular thing to do for new Steemians is to take a dated picture of themselves with the Steemit logo and write an intro post with the tag "introduceyourself" just to test the waters. You will find that there are genuine users on the platform willing to help you out and get you started on the platform. Join a Discord channel related to a specific niche on the platform. There you can interact with other users and network with others. What is Discord? It's a chat app that was used by Gamers but also now used for cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts.

For now, I don’t recommend you check out the trending pages as I mentioned in the “Cons” above. Instead, pick subtopics like TravelFeed, Photofeed, there’s a big and thorough whitepaper describing how most of the things function in detail, but that is for the backend, rather than for the frontend accessibility that Steemit provides into the blockchain.

Steemit is still a social networking platform and even though powered by a blockchain and using cryptocurrency, is still intended for use by the masses. You just basically use it like you would use Facebook and such. You can gain a following by engaging other users and contribute useful and engaging content. Here the difference is other social media platforms is that you are paid for your time and effort.

Now that you’re on the platform, you’re going to ask the Million Dollar question.

Can You Make Money on Steemit?

The short answer is yes. If you receive votes on your posts and if those votes have enough backing (Steem Power) then you will get higher rewards. Incidentally, you can also vote for yourself and if you have some investment on the platform it will also count towards making you money.

You can make money...But...

Have I made money with Steemit? Absolutely! I started in December 2017 and managed to amass over 6k followers just posting content that I already posted on my own Travel Blog – Always Wanderlust. I did have to initially invest my own money within the platform to get these returns. This post itself is replicated on Steemit using the Steempress plugin and is earning money as you're reading. I also used bid bots to get my content to the trending pages.

The long answer can be complicated to explain and most of it can be explained in the Pros and Cons below.

The Pros and Cons of Steemit

Pros:

Yes, It’s Possible to Make Money – It’s true! You can make money, through hard work, determination, sheer luck, and perhaps having friends with big money on the platform.

There are Plenty of Users – Steemit is running on the most active Blockchain in the world. There are lots of transactions and activities within the platform.

It's Growing Rapidly – It’s one of the fastest growing Social Media Platform on the Web, with meteoric traffic rise.

It's a Great Way to Get your Feet Wet in Crypto – Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve heard about Bitcoin. Steemit is a great way to learn all about cryptocurrency and the technology behind it – The Blockchain.

It's Decentralized – For the most part, it’s uncensored. If you've got any Libertarian leanings you will love the concept. There’s no governing “centralized” big brother telling you what you can or cannot do or say on the platform.

Gives Extra Exposure for Established Bloggers – If you already have a blog you can gain more audience within the platform by posting your content. If you’re using Wordpress you can use the SteemPress plugin to automatically publish your post on the Steem blockchain.

Cons:

Building an Audience Can Be Challenging – If you are just starting out without any initial investment it can be very hard to get a following.

Unknown Future of Steemit – If the platform goes the way of the Dodo, your content also goes.

Hard to Get Cash – If don’t know about cryptocurrency you can be in over your head. To get Fiat out of Steem requires you to convert it to Bitcoin first and sell Bitcoin to cash, which means you need to be on a cryptocurrency Exchange to make exchanges.

Difficult Barrier of Entry – It can be a nightmare to understand how the platform works and how the money is distributed. This can turn off a lot of newbies.

Select Few Controlling the Reward Pool – Because of the way Steemit is structured, accounts with large investments (Whales) control the reward pool which leads to abuse and corruption.

Content isn’t always King – Because of the flaws in the rewards and voting system, you will rarely see excellent genuine content on the “Trending” page. Whales with massive voting power vote themselves and their friends to the top regardless of the quality of their content.

The Biggest Cons Explained

The Top 2 Percent Users in the Platform Control the Reward Pool

The biggest draw to the platform, Decentralization, is also its biggest problem. People with massive Steem Power and investment on the Steemit platform (a whale) control the reward pool. With no “centralized” governing body to keep any abuses in check, these whales self-vote themselves to thousands of dollars a day! Steemit is basically the Wild-Wild-West of the crypto world.

Imagine if you have 1 million in Steem and you power yourself up. A single vote will net you $153 (Rewards value not based on USD) on any post (quality content or not) you decide to upvote. Since you can vote yourself, you can basically reward yourself thousands of dollars a day based on the current value of Steem/SBD and how often you upvote your own content.

You can quickly see how this can lead to abuse of the reward pool created within the platform. It won’t be long before you see the same accounts voting on each other’s posts (circle jerking) to get their sub-par articles in the Trending Pages.

Such a structure also leads to “Vote Selling.” It sounds just like it sounds, you can basically sell your votes to others for money. This lead to a lot of enterprising users to create "bid bots" which are accounts with massive voting power. You can basically buy votes from these bid bots in return for an upvote of your content and some users abuse it by pushing subpar content to the trending pages. I'm actually using these bid bots to promote this post on Steemit.

This has created a lot of friction between different camps in the platform – those who are against buying votes and for it. In most cases, bid bots become a necessary evil for content creators in order to make it to the trending pages. Buying votes are the only way to compete with whales who have the available funds to rocket themselves to the top.

Flawed System Design where Content isn't always King

As mentioned above, anybody with massive Steem Power can rocket themselves to the top of the Trending Pages. This is regardless of the quality of their content. If the content gets the most valued votes then it is what's going to “trend.” Just visit the trending pages at Steemit.com. You will see the same people day after day and week after week, posting horrid pictures of a street puddle and poem about how important the mud on the street is.

It's very tough for newcomers with little to no investment in the platform to make money. This will lead vote buying from bid bots just to make to the Trending Page. Building an audience on Steemit requires money. If you don't have the cash then you would need to know a “Whale” to support and vote for your content.

It can be Difficult to Cash Out your Money

While it can be tough to earn money posting articles on Steemit, getting it out is battle in itself. You only get your money after the seventh day of your post being in circulation. The reward system guarantees the author 75% of the amount and 25% to the curators. Out of the 75% reward, half of it is in the form of Steem Power which is only usable on the website via voting power. The other half comes as Steem Backed Dollars (SBD) which you can then transfer to an exchange. From there you can convert SBD to another cryptocurrency like Bitcoin which can then convert to Fiat.

The complexities of these transactions alone can drive new users away, especially if they are new to Cryptocurrency. It took me a couple weeks to get a hang of the whole thing where I was comfortable enough to move digital assets across to various exchanges all the way to my bank. All of this also comes with all the inherent risks with the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

So, in a nutshell, your 50 SBD could be worth $450 but tomorrow it might only be worth $6. Regrettably, the issue does not stop there. There are just a small number of exchanges that trade SBD, hence limiting your choices of how to get Fiat. In addition, if you want to get Steem out of your Steem Power you must go into what is called the “Power Down” mode. This only gives you back a proportional amount of the Steem per week over a 13-week period. This can be frustrating while you wait for your money while the value of Steem goes up and down on the exchanges.

There are a few retailers and business that take Steem or SBD as a form of payment. However, these are few and far between. There is yet to be mass adoption of popular Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as a form of payment and Steem is still lagging.

The Best Pros Explained

You Can Make Money – Just by Using the platform

Whatever you do on the platform, such as posting pictures or writing articles, you can make money. You earn by voting and commenting on posts. You earn by just delegating your Steem Power to somebody else who will put it good use. How much money you earn is proportional to how much you invest in it in terms of time or money.

You Can Make Money on Steemit

You will never get such rewards from Facebook or Instagram. A Centralized Corporate Entity like Facebook & Instagram has private investors and a CEO who is taking in all the money from ad revenues. They earn this money from your content while you get nothing in return.

It’s the Blockchain Baby

Love it, hate it, or don’t know a thing about it. The blockchain is the future. Even if Cryptocurrency disappears tomorrow the technology behind it has massive uses and potential. Steemit runs on top of a blockchain. It costs you virtually nothing to use it. The decentralized nature of the platform means no censorship. It means users will have to self-police within the platform because big brother isn't there to look out for you.

Massive Growth and Potential of the Platform

All the other social media platforms were once small and had once a small user base. Now, something like Instagram has over 40 million users. Who knows, maybe Steemit will be tomorrow’s Myspace. But there’s no denying its massive growth in the two years it has been out.

It’s the most utilized blockchain in the world with more transactions than Bitcoin or Ethereum. There are now over a million users within the platform and still growing. There’s still time for you to adapt and grow an audience within the platform before it takes off. As they say in the crypto universe, “To the moon!”

You Gain More Audience for your Blog

If you already have an established Wordpress blog, it’s really a no-brainer to join Steemit. You can use the Steempress plugin to automatically push your articles into the Steem blockchain. This gives you extra exposure and audience to your blog and even earn you some extra income in the process!

Would I Recommend Steemit to Fellow Travel Bloggers?

Yes, with a caveat. If you’re already an established Travel Blogger with a good following and use WordPress as your blogging platform. Using the Steempress plugin will make it worth your while. I’ve been using the plugin with great success, and making a few bucks in the process, for months now. It’s relatively easy to use, a no-brainer really. You simply post as you would normally on Wordpress and your articles magically appear on the Steem Blockchain. As of this writing, the Steempress account on Steemit could potentially give you an upvote if you have high-quality content to contribute to the platform.

You’ll have to monitor your posts via the Steemit or Busy.org platform. There you will interact with your audience just like you would via Facebook or Twitter. You will have to use the same methods you used to build your audience on the various social media platforms. Which is to say, engage, engage, and engage with your audience.

If you’re just starting out and want to make money online blogging - there are better options for starting your own blog and using WordPress. You either need to have money invested in the platform or know somebody who has invested a lot on the platform. Starting your own website or Wordpress blog is a much better option.

I do have some good news. There are several initiatives within the platform created to reward content creators who might otherwise go unnoticed. Take, for example, TravelFeed, which curates travel content and rewards content creators throughout Steemit. If you’re a photographer, several initiatives in the platform will help you earn money on good photography. Initiatives such as Photofeed and several photography contests run by @Juliank and @Czechglobalhosts give you such rewards.

There is also ongoing development within the platform to address the issues I’ve mentioned above. In short, Steemit is not perfect. It’s relatively new and swimming in relatively new waters called the blockchain. Problems and issues crop up. The platform will need some tweaks and fixes.

With all that said. Is it worth to join Steemit?

First, ask yourself this question - When was the last time you made a dollar from posting anything on Facebook?

TLDR;

1 - Steemit is a social media platform that pays its users for being involved.

2 - You can make money but you have to be patient and determined.

3 - It's hard to get your money but becomes easier when as you learn about the platform and cryptocurrency.

4 - There are corruption and issues but there's also development ongoing to mitigate these issues.

5 - It's better to start your own blog or website than blog on Steemit if you're just starting out.

6 - An already established blogger on Wordpress can benefit by joining Steemit and using the Steempress plugin.

7 - You will learn a lot about the blockchain and cryptocurrencies just by being on the platform.

Great post, I'm sure there are many new steemians, as well as potential new recruits that may come across steemit thanks to you writing this on your website, who could take some advice from you (or just learn some the basics thanks to the simple way you presented it).

To your comment that a new user will need to either invest in STEEM or have a friend with a lot of SP, it is worth pointing out that community projects such as @steemSTEM, @ocd@curie, etc, do great work at rewarding quality content. However, we certainly need many more such groups, covering different topics, if we want to achieve a better correlation between quality and effort on one side and rewards and visibility on the other.

And finally, thanks for mentioning SteemPress! I hope we can continue to provide creators like yourself with a useful product while lowering some the of the barriers you rightly mention for other bloggers to come onboard as well.

Thank you! If only more established bloggerss know about your plugin. I'm sure most of them are turned off from Steemit because they believe it will take more work - which really isn't the case with Steempress!

I started here exactly 1 year and I invest only 1k dollar that time. After a year my account has made over 20k dollar as of today(take note that I didnt cash out any from the day 1).

The question if you can make money here? The answer is big YES! However, it takes a lot of hard work. If you are just starting thi gs our in Crypto and no initial investment I would suggest to start in @dlive start making you videos. Steem is not just an easy money grab. It takes full dedication and love to the things here.

Steemit really redefined the platform of social media and blogging. We engaged in social media for a long time without any income generating benefit (at least most of us) until steemit came unto our attention and here we are now, we are earning while enjoying interacting with our fellow steemians and mind you, there are hundreds if not thousand that join the steemit wagon plus the numerous meetups all over the globe.

I've been using Steemit for about two months now. I started off using voting bots (and am glad I did) but have reverted to just growing organically.

I think Steemit is a wonderful platform and it has definitely benefited me. While it has it's flaws, it is providing sustainable income options for MANY people. While I can't currently live off my Steemit income, it is growing. One day I might be able to support myself from Steemit alone!

hey @adonisabril, this was actually a really, really informative post, thank you! And congrats for making it that far in such a short time! I have a daily wordpress blog by myself with a couple thousand followers and you've mentioned Steempress a few times. Are there no google issues with "duplicate content" so that google downgrades the SEO rating of your blog? As it seems that Steempress copies the content from your site?

yep, i just checked in with the creators of the plugin. All good! thanks man! Google also checks the source of where the content had been published first... So all good if your post appears first on your blog.
have a good week!
Sam

Hi @adonisabril Thank you so much for sharing such an informative post about this platform. I'm new to steemit, only a few days old, so it's great to have such a detailed post explaining it all properly and putting it in more simple terms for a newbie like me.

Excellent article! I've been here since January of this year and still figuring out. I've tried getting friends on Steemit but they get discouraged fast just like you said above. Thanks for the article!

Well done... I have been on this platform a little longer than you have... I haven't made 6k but I started without an initial investment and am still learning how to create good original content. I wish you the best in your future with steemit.

This is my first venture into steemit after updating my profile. Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to learn from the footsteps of others. From the post I get the sense that steemit replicates some of the economic hieirarchy that is so prevalent in the dominant culture, but I still look forward to participating in this experiment free of advertisers and harvesters of personal information.

Very thorough and lucid explanation. Thanks @adonisabril. I've been on Steemit for less than 2 months and I find all you have said to be true. I'm self employed and am an author, so I have those advantages over people who are at work all day, and who, perhaps, are not blessed with great writing skills. Meaning, while I love Steemit, I have to say it's not for everyone.

Hey @adonisabril! Thank your for sharing your knoweldge and story with us, honestly . As you point it out, for new users, as me for example, it is really important to get upvotes from the "big whales" . However I think ,and this is my story to share, we cannot focus just on this. We are here to help each other, to build a community, and it is only happen with good quailty content. If some big dogs from the hood got stronger voice than the others, just because they are bigger, we will never hear that little puppy ,who is waiting at front of the door. Even if he or she is the cutest of all. Our voice is our coolness. Our coolness is quailty content. So thank you for sharing with me, and the other members of this family , your coolness. At the end, I would like to ask, what do yoo think, what would happen with the community if everybody got equal vote power ( foundamential point in the cryptocurrencies) ??

Just made my way to Steemit yesterday. This is very helpful for me! Thank you for taking the time write such an in-depth review and i look forward to trying to make this platform work. There are many of us Youtubers that are sick of the way Youtube is handling the creator relations and i am excited to share Steemit with fellow creators. I know i am not the only Youtuber that is fed up with it but i believe we need to help spread the word about Steemit. Thanks again!

Very nice, detailed post for new comers. I do agree with most of your ideas about Steemit. I think that making money via Steem is possible, but only if you spend enough effort in writing decent content and invest your time and your money also.

Personally I see Steemit as a way to play out my skill of writing (I'm not good at writing at all), also a way to show to the world my vie ( I love sharing my experience to others).

I also invest in Steem, as a way for a long-term investment, not just a short-term play. I hope that my journey and yours will become greater and more successful than ever in Steem!

Thank you for the informative article. My account just got approved today after more than 2 weeks of waiting. This ready is so timely for me and all the other new steemians who are still a bit uncertain about how to make this platform work for them

hi there!
#1- congrats for your first 6 month of travel. also it is kind of hard for the beginners into this platform named steemit, also there are 3 factors to success in steemit.
a) quality of yours posts
b) invest some money
c) luck, good luck.

It's really funny that you can make money here by posting content, however that content isn't always going to get noticed because big people who have came way before the new users dominate this place with their friends. In this community if you don't network properly you cannot actually make any money.

Go! This is an interesting topic,
I will review it in detail, it is very valuable your contribution to your vision about steemit, it helps us especially to those of us who are starting.
Excellent, THANKS for sharing!

Hi. I joined Steemit on January 25 of this year. A friend told me about this social network. I subscribed although I did not have much information. But for years I have published things on my facebook, twitter and Instagran account, and what I have been able to obtain is a simple "I like it". But since I started at Steemit I have learned that my opinion or publications can have a value; especially a monetary value. During this time my gains have not been many; I'm still looking for success, but my rewards have helped me meet some needs as a single mother. Also, here in Venezuela, my native country, the economic situation is very bad (it is not a secret for the world), so any profit is of help. When I was able to make my first SBD change for Bolivares, I could not believe it. At last the things that inspire me began to matter.

I got into this when andrarchy tweeted it. I like the tone of your writing. I don't feel any hype and I feel the genuiness of the intention to inform the reader in an unbiased way. I haven't gone through reading everything (I'm still about to read the pros and cons section), but mid-way through it, I have the feeling that it's a great post overall.

Thank you for sharing your post @adonisabril I find it very useful for all the people that are thinking about starting here in Steemit. I think Steemit is a great way to express ourselves and share the things that we love, I 'm new here and I feel very motivated.

This looks like a script for students and a dictionary that everyone can understand ...
which is in this crypto space of great importance ... that people can get a picture of what they are doing, on the block chains ( in the head ).

I'm still a newbie here and this post has given great insight to how steemit goes. Though I still have questions, I hope to interact and benefit from this platform. Any more help will be greatly appreciated.

Well writeen! I’ve been a user of SteemIt for the better part of a year now and I can confirm the saying “Content isn’t always King”. Hopefully something changes to give the other small time content creators the recognition they deserve and great job on the guide. It’s easy enough for people new to the platform to understand!

I started with steemit 3 months ago but didn't take it seriously until a few days ago. There is huge potential here if u r willling to give it time. I like to post 1-2 times a day and also try to read others posts / content and replying leaving valuable comments/feedback.

I started with steemit 3 months ago but didn't take it seriously until a few days ago. There is huge potential here if u r willling to give it time. I like to post 1-2 times a day and also try to read others posts / content and replying leaving valuable comments/feedback.

I started with steemit 3 months ago but didn't take it seriously until a few days ago. There is huge potential here if u r willling to give it time. I like to post 1-2 times a day and also try to read others posts / content and replying leaving valuable comments/feedback.

I started with steemit 3 months ago but didn't take it seriously until a few days ago. There is huge potential here if u r willling to give it time. I like to post 1-2 times a day and also try to read others posts / content and replying leaving valuable comments/feedback.

This is a super super helpful, awesome post! I just made my first post today of a short film I made and I was definitely wondering about the dynamics of the platform and how it all works. So thanks man!

What a find, I'm new so I will be doing a introduce my self. I have never been a blogger but this platform I am more interested in the way the community controls the content and our content get rewarded directly. This platform is going to be big. I really want to go traveling after reading this as well. Hopefully if crypto gives me freedom to travel and not work 6 days a week I can see some of the world. Keep smiling man

While you were writing this post i was laying on my couch and eating M&Ms. Sometimes I like to hold two m&m's in between my fingers and squeeze as hard as I can until one m&m cracks. I eat the cracked one, and the one that didn't crack becomes the champion. Then I grab the other m&m, and force it to compete with the champion in this deadly game of m&m gladiators. I do this until I run out of m&m's, and when there is only one m&m left standing, I send a letter to m&m's brand with the champion m&m in it with a note attached that reads: "Please use this m&m for breeding purposes.

Hey Thanks for this post! Im quite new in Steemit! I'm also a travel blogger! I don't want to give my opinion about Steemit as its too soon for me but if it's true everything I read IM JUST SO IMPRESSED!!! haha I will keep working in this social media for sure. Thanks for the info of how to use it as its not being easy for me!

Well written, thak you for sharing. I learn a lot from this article. Because I just started my steemit a couple days ago. And now I'm wandering on many articles for reading all everything about it while I try to start create my article. It's a new beginning and I hope I could survive in steemit ocean.

Content will never be king. Imagine if Beyonce joins the platform. One idiotic picture would bring her so much money. People are not rational. I like the steem platform but I never expect it to be completely fair because thats just not hoe people are. Just build yoir following and hustle.

A true awsome review.....felt glad to read something from heart @adonisabril ...resyeeming ...👍you have pour out heart on each of the words...and well eye opener for many too...must need to be on trending page......👌

A+ article. You put a lot of time, thought, and honesty into this. I hope people use it to get the most out of what Steemit can offer, without having false expectations of where the platform is in its evolution. Personally, I've never had this much fun or success blogging in the eight years I've done it, so I'm glad I'm here. Steem on!